This PhD thesis has two main objectives. The first objective is to develop, implement, and verify an integrated simulation and optimization framework to study surface mining operations to address important drawbacks of currently available surface mining simulation models. These drawbacks include 1) the treatment of stochastic variables as deterministic ones in material handling systems in surface mines; 2) the deficiency in linking mining systems to mineral processing systems; 3) the inability to integrate fleet management systems with material handling systems; and 4) the lack of flexibility in using different truck-dispatching algorithms in developed simulation systems.